I just turned the key in left direction of my recently purchased apartment.
And the hollow view of my empty apartment was in front of me. Luckily Riya, my close friend was with me.

She is a bubbly techno savvy Interior Designer with quest for experimentation.She keeps trying new methodologies to make her job exciting and easy.Now a days , she is always with a new bulky helmet like device which she calls her as assistant.

"Hey Riya, what's up? Did I make right decision investing all most all savings in this? " I made a scary face on her.

"I am not investment guru to advice on this." She chucked. "But I know you have shoe-string budget for interiors." She gave me looks.

"You see. In most designing projects people get disillusioned. Once ideas solidify into realty , people start seeing greener grass somewhere else." "Oh really." I was surprised.

"People have their own gestalts. Perceptions mixed with emotions are difficult to handle in our profession." Her eyes widened. "Indeed you are in a tough profession. But all creative professions are tough." I reacted.

"There are endless possibilities of ideas, I am talking about. Dealing with varying taste of people takes toll on me." She fired.

"Yes. Everybody has it's own gestalt. It is nothing, but the way of looking at things." I simplified it. "Is this new device which you carry as assistant made your life simple? " I bluntly asked.

"Very much." Riya giggled. "How?" I became excited.

I know your taste in colors,fabrics and materials. She just started. Even I know what kind of furniture you like? After all , I am one of your closest buddies. I know which light makes you ecstatic and happy. And which does make you gloomy? You like plain smooth textures with bright colors. Needless to say you have eyes for curves. You swear by the rule that simplicity is the ultimate beauty.You are lover of plants and in-house gardens specially with flowers like Tulips and Jasmine. You also like African Violet and Golden Pothos. Aquariums with Gold fish in scuba diving kind of environment makes you nuts.You like electronics with sleek design black borders.

I started laughing and she continued. "You can not leave bed without sunlight and cappuccino coffee."

"You know quite intimate stuff. Does your so called assistant knows me so intimately?" I asked.

"Yeah. I have trained it. Kind of." She giggled. "I have fed it with 3D wire frame drawing of your apartment which I got from architect."

"Take this headset and wear it.", She gave me a bulky helmet like device. "What is it ?"

"It is HoloLens created by Microsoft. The assistant resides in it." She explained.

"You like to sleep in jockey in large size bed with fully covered blanket."

The very next moment, my eyes were covered with the headset and I was able to see only green lines in my apartment. They were imposed on the apartment representing wall,ceiling and window boundaries.

"I am able to see you. Plus these green lines." I exclaimed. "Do you see the same?"

"Nope. I am not wearing it." She said.

"So what next?" I asked. "Let us complete your task of interiors. Are you able to see ATM like Kiosk in front of you ?" She questioned.

"Oh yes. From where did it come in my apartment ? It was not there." I shouted.

"Relax.That is my assistant. It is inside the HoloLens and it is virtual 3D Model. This is called Mixed Reality." She explained.

"Seeing those objects virtually which are not present in the real world." Her explanation reminded me of Pokemon Go and my fanatic desire to catch those Pokemon s everywhere. I had experienced the game.

"My assistant is intelligent and easy to operate." She said. "Just select your options by touching and tap with finger. You can rotate your head left,right, up and down to see the panoramic view. You can walk anywhere to see the result.You will find assistant always present here, if you come here."

"Oh interesting. So how do I begin ?" I asked.

Let us start with flooring.She pointed on assistant and told me to select flooring option. I touched flooring and tapped. Wooden, marbles,carpets and there were many sub-options.I selected Italian marble and tapped. My apartment was covered with Italian marbles.The rough concrete texture just vanished.

I selected magenta color and tapped and instantly my apartment walls including ceilings were painted with magenta. "Hey, I want to feel the colors in light". I shouted.

"Just select the light and color and tap." She giggled. Immediately 3d Models of LED light fixtures popped up in front of me and I pushed them to ceilings. I re positioned them everywhere to distribute the intensity. I like white milky light.

"Can I place tattoos on my walls ?" I asked. "Oh yes." She said."There is whole range of stickers and artifacts available with the assistant. Go ahead and position as you wish."

I placed superman and batman drawings on children bedroom and installed watches in every room. I positioned some fancy decorative items in every room.

"Does it contain 3D models of objects as per your programming? It has got vast number of designing items as 3D models." I asked.

"Yes. It needs to be fed with 3D real life models of interior items. Alternatively, it can access a 3d Model library on internet." She giggled. "So your creativity has no limit."

"I have to go to each room to see result and come back here to assistant again and again." I said.

"No need. Just first install LED TVs in your rooms as you are going to have everywhere in reality." She said.
I selected and tapped and installed LED TV sets in each room. I started TV in dining room watched a news channel to check, if it is working. The sleek black border TV set mounted on wall was looking nice in each room.

"So how to carry assistant everywhere ? That was your problem." She asked. "Just lift assistant with both hands and shove it into the TV set." She giggled.

I did the same. Assistant vanished and it was visible on TV screen.

"Let us complete the decorating task one by one." She said in a motivational tone. "Start by bedroom."

We moved to bedroom. I touched assistant on the TV channel and selected bedroom options. Installed king size bed of teak wood,matching mattresses and curtains on the french windows. Selected some sundry furniture for bedroom from 3D models and completed it. Installed some plants of flowers as my favorites.

We quickly moved to rest room. Installed shower ,electric geyser and necessary hardware fittings. Took a bath in shower and saw the sprinkles of water.

We completed the task by installing modular kitchen set with chimney in the kitchen and sofa sets in dining hall. Installed a good looking aquarium having golden fish with blue lights. Checked burning of gas and smoke flow direction.

We came to dining hall and I tried to take seat on sofa. And I hit the concrete floor and the rough texture was in friction with my palm. She quickly laughed giving me helping hand to get up.

"Hey look. It is still unreal. We need to make it real by installing physical items what you have perceived and felt.". She said. "Oh yes.Damn with your unreal world." I said.

I quickly removed HoloLens from my head and hollow concrete walls and floors and ceilings were staring at me with their rough textures.

"Do not worry. Your. design and preferences have been saved on my website." I will physically order all the items to make it real. She was ecstatic now.

I nodded and said that it is final.

"Can I access the same design again in future after it has become reality ?" I asked.

"Oh yes. You can.Whenever you want to experiment with furniture,colors,curtains,artifacts,flooring,plants and fishes and lights and with other stuff." She giggled. "Change it in Unreal World from internet and let me know." She said. "I will make it real." She asserted.

Digital Marketing offers active engagement with consumers.

As we are living a
digital life, sales and marketing has been considerably enhanced with
digital media. New age requires out of box sales and marketing strategies. Social Media Platforms (Facebook , LinkedIn , Twitter, Whats App, YouTube,
etc.) have shaped the Digital Marketing era. Digital marketing is currently ruling among the best ideas for out of box marketing.It
provides interactive platforms to have meaningful engagement with
consumers. Contrary to that SMS Marketing, Email Marketing and other
traditional media platforms like TV, Radio and Print Media provide
passive engagement experience with consumers.

New Digital Marketing trends which will rule the decade.

Smartphone Apps will provide larger platforms for Contextual Advertising based on Consumer’s Demographic Profile.
In fact, normal Apps or Gaming Apps will be created or sponsored by
large brands or media houses solely to promote products or services.
This is also termed as Gamification of Brand or Gamification of
Products.

Whats App or any other Messenger App(s) may come with new versions which will analyze keywords in the chats of users based on AI (Artificial Intelligence)
algorithms. It may create a demographic profile of user termed as
“Persona” or “Personality” or “Avatar”. It will decide likes or dislikes
of the user based on “Persona” or “Avatar” and provide Contextual
Advertisements based on that.

Smartphone Games as Digital Signage Screens

Digital Signage Screens or Digital Billboards
will be embedded in the gaming Apps like car racing, war games or any
other multi-player games where player’s data or session information is
stored on central server. These Digital Signage Screens or Digital
Billboards will stream video advertisements from the central server
based on “Avatar” or “Persona” of the game players. It will be possible
to do Eyeball Analysis or Footfall Analysis for advertisements as all
data is stored on Central Server in the game play environment.

Digital Banners or Audio/Video playback in the Apps will be common as methodology of Brand Recall for products/services.

Since
reach of Smartphones will be huge, we may compare it with the analogy
of reaching electricity to common people. Smartphones will be as common
as Electricity. It will be possible to do Contextual Advertising based
on consumer’s age, gender, education and other demographic parameters.
With the rise of Big Data and other technologies for Business
Intelligence, Contextual Advertisements will be targeted to desired
consumer group. It will be very cost effective also as far as marketing
expenditure is considered.

Beyond Video – Holograms as Interactive Advertisements

The Out Of Home (OOH) media will
be dominated by Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality applications. You
can get some ideas of what kind of applications can be developed with
Virtual Reality or Augmented Reality HERE

Currently,
out of home media or Digital Signage Networks provide video based
content. Emerging new Holographic Hardware and Devices for Virtual and
Augmented Reality will serve content as Holograms or Interactive Videos
where consumer will interact with advertisements in real-time in the
form of Holograms. It will help consumers to get better understanding of
Products/Services. Some of the hardware or devices emerging in this
field are as given below:

Oculus Vision – A Virtual Reality platform

Microsoft HoloLens – An Augmented Reality Platform

Google Glass – A Virtual Reality Platform

Change in Social Media Platform

Two
distinct kind of social media platforms will emerge. One platform may
be for business or professional networking e.g. LinkedIn, various Job
Portals, etc. Another one may be for community networking like Facebook,
Twitter, etc.

Currently, there is no clear
demarcation between the two as both overlap the functionalities of each
other. Sooner or later they will align to their core competencies as the
major revenue for them is Contextual Advertising. It is the core of
their Business Model. Demarcation will help them to target right kind of
advertisers easily.

New kind of hardware devices may emerge which will be connected to Internet and information savvy e.g.

Wearable Watches,

Wearable Medical Devices to monitor body functions

Some
devices will collect personal information and will send to our Social
Media Profile to be used by advertisers. Our existing home appliances
will be IoT enabled. Suddenly our LED TV will become smarter. Since it
will be connected to Internet, it will have access to vast information
available on Internet plus our Social Media Profiles. So it will provide
another Contextual Advertising platform for Advertisers. Some devices
will provide Contextual Advertising platform like Refrigerators or
Washing Machines.

Summary

Anything which is of digital nature and has ability to communicate on Internet may be a potential media platform. The above will be some of the out of box marketing and advertising ideas.